U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is a whistleblower who wanted to inform the American public about the troubling things he saw in the war zone, and the soldier is willing to pay the price for giving secrets to WikiLeaks, his defense attorney said Friday.

During closing arguments, attorney David Coombs disputed what prosecutors said a day earlier, that Manning was a traitor whose only mission as an intelligence analyst was to give classified information to the anti-secrecy website and bask in the attention.

Hes not seeking attention. He saying hes willing to accept the price for what he has done, Coombs said.

Manning, 25, is charged with 21 offenses, but the most serious is aiding the enemy. A conviction on that could land him in prison for the rest of his life.

A whistleblower is somebody that sees something wrong or illegal and reports it to the appropriate authorities, despite likely repercussions. Usually in the federal government one is expected to seek protection from Congress for misdeeds of the executive. In practice, whistleblowing is a much muddier ordeal.

Bradley Manning, an E-5 in the Army, was mad about the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy because he is a homosexual. His response wasn't to advocate, protest, march, write his congressman, or get kicked out of the Army. His response was to download every bit of classified material he could get his hands on, regardless of its content, and give it to a foreign party. He did this to cause as much damage as possible, not to highlight any wrongdoing.

The first problem here is that there is no way an E-5 needs access to most of the material he released, among which was diplomatic traffic. The people that set his access to such material need to be relieved of their jobs, permanently.

The second is that if Manning had just waiting 18 months he could have skipped his hissy fit and I am sure he would have never divulged that material.

The third is the huge question of how a barely in the closet homosexual got a security clearance for that material. It seems under DADT the investigators must have been told to not dig into that type of information.

This is NOT Snowden...Manning did this while wearing the uniform. I have a diffrerent attitude towards Manning.

I have had clearances both as military and civilian. When you place you signature on a security form, your signature should mean your honor. A citizen of the U.S. should be no less honor bound than a soldier.

Manning revealed massive amounts of general war-time information, that included information helpful to our enemies, and very little content that indicated inappropriate behavior by the military.

Snowden on the other hand is a mixed bag.

Snowden revealed government spying on American citizens without a warrant, with very little oversight by a secretive court that only hears the government side. This represents an unconstitutional search and invasion of privacy. For revealing this, Snowden should be considered a hero and a defender of the average citizen.

But Snowden unfortunately didn't stop there. He also revealed government spying on China and the EU including generalized techniques. That wasn't unconstitutional and revealing that is traitorous.

Several bags actually - containing laptops that are presently within the purview of the KGB/GRU/Oprichniki alphabet soup.

Where did Super Genius Snowden go? He went Russia - where the Oligarchs once built a wall to keep their state-property contained, and where they listened to and recorded everything their property said, just like what comrade Snowden is whining about NSA doing.

Bradley Manning, an E-5 in the Army, was mad about the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy because he is a homosexual. His response wasn't to advocate, protest, march, write his congressman, or get kicked out of the Army. His response was to download every bit of classified material he could get his hands on, regardless of its content, and give it to a foreign party. He did this to cause as much damage as possible, not to highlight any wrongdoing.

Bingo. For that matter, those Muslims who tried to blow up their ship during the Gulf War -- I think the ship was in the Far East at the time -- are similarly just traitors who should have gone to the gallows.

21
posted on 07/30/2013 6:48:51 PM PDT
by SunkenCiv
(It's no coincidence that some "conservatives" echo the hard left.)

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